The financial news that actually matters
A Pennsylvania metals company has agreed to pay $3.66 million to 51 workers after federal labor regulators found it unlawfully kept striking employees from returning to their jobs. The package is unusually large for a single plant, and it includes something most workplace cases never touch: more than a million dollars in future wages for…
Former AT&T customers who were owed money for having their data speeds secretly slowed are getting another shot at a refund, this time delivered straight to a bank account through Zelle. The Federal Trade Commission is routing the payments to people who never cashed the check or accepted the PayPal transfer from an earlier round….
For the first time since 2018, taxpayers who itemize can write off far more of what they pay in state and local taxes. The new federal tax law lifted the cap on the state-and-local-tax deduction, long known as SALT, from $10,000 to $40,000. The change matters most to homeowners in high-tax states, where property taxes…
The word “Advantage” in Medicare Advantage sells a promise of extra benefits, but it hides a mechanism that Original Medicare largely lacks: prior authorization. Before a private Advantage plan will pay for a scan, a hospital admission, a nursing-home transfer, or a piece of home medical equipment, it can require advance sign-off, and it can…
Medicare’s coverage of nursing-home care carries a condition that surprises many families at the worst possible moment. Original Medicare will help pay for a stay in a skilled nursing facility only after a patient has spent at least three consecutive days admitted to a hospital as an inpatient. The rule is decades old, rarely explained…
Inheriting a parent’s retirement account once came with a quiet tax advantage: an heir could stretch withdrawals over a lifetime, letting the money grow tax-deferred for decades. That strategy, known as the stretch IRA, is largely gone. Under the SECURE Act, most heirs who inherit an IRA must now empty the entire account within 10…
A common fear keeps some couples from claiming everything Social Security allows: the worry that a lower-earning spouse who files for a benefit on a partner’s record will somehow shrink that partner’s own check. It will not. A spousal benefit is paid on top of the higher earner’s retirement benefit, and the worker whose record…
Millions of married and formerly married Americans approach retirement expecting two Social Security checks: one earned through a lifetime of payroll taxes and a second earned as the spouse of a higher-earning husband or wife. Social Security was never built to pay both in full. A provision called dual entitlement delivers the larger of the…
The list of what federal food benefits can buy is being rewritten state by state. A wave of federally approved waivers is stripping soda, candy, and other sweetened items out of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in a growing number of states, and South Carolina’s version takes effect at the end of August. For older…
A little-known escape hatch in Medicare’s rulebook is about to close for thousands of Rhode Island retirees. Beneficiaries who lost in-network access to Brown University Health hospitals after UnitedHealthcare’s Medicare Advantage contract lapsed have until August 31 to change plans outside the normal enrollment calendar. The window was approved by federal officials precisely because these…